Join Kevin Mitnick - the "most wanted computer criminal in the world" - as he shares his secrets on the security threats facing corporate America.

Welcome Guest. | Log In| Register | Membership Benefits
  • Email this page E-mail this page
  • |  Print Print this page
  • |   Bookmark and Share
  • |  icon
  • | 

The Explorer: Making Your PC Secure Online, Part Two


In Part One, we showed how to adjust your network settings for better security. Now we'll look at free and commercial add-on products and services that do even more.

By Fred Langa
InformationWeek
February 28, 2000 12:00 AM

If you've already taken the essential steps outlined in Four Myths of Online Security, you've already closed the worst security holes found in most PC networking setups. Now that you have good, basic online security from hacker attacks, you're ready to add the final touches that will make your PC safe from virtually all the common, casual types of attacks, and quite resistant to even highly-skilled or devious attacks as well. This combination of an inherently safe setup PLUS an add-on security product also means you have two levels of defense; if anything goes wrong with one level, you'll still have the other to protect you. Before you add any security products to your system, use an external test to verify that your setup is still OK. It's a good idea to schedule either weekly or monthly checks of your system's security to ensure nothing has altered your basic security setup, and your PC is still basically safe.

I know of three excellent, free sites that will try to probe your Internet connection from the outside, helping you to detect and correct potential security problems:

More Security Insights

White Papers

Webcasts

Reports

Videos


Hacker explains how to use non-tech ways to break technical security models Confidential information is everywhere, so it must be protected Jeff Palmer says BlueLane's security tools are different from intrusion prevention systems in that they both protect the infrastructure and ensure high availability.
Palo Alto Networks rethinks the firewall to accurately identify and control applications
http://grc.com/intro.htm
http://www.dslreports.com/r3/dsl/secureme
http://www.antionline.com/

I've been using the three sites in series: they test similar things (so there is some overlap) but with different methods and emphases. By running tests on the three sites one after the other, you can sniff your system's Internet connection for all the most common security trouble spots. If you pass all three tests, you can be pretty sure that you're secure from the most common types of hack attacks.

The Gibson Research site (http://grc.com/intro.htm) also has extensive help files that are worth reading. In particular, if you find you have trouble closing a specific port (such as the infamous Port 39/NetBIOS), Gibson has extensive step-by-step instructions on ways to ensure the port gets closed and stays closed: See http://grc.com/su-bondage.htm.

Once your PC passes all the above tests, you're ready to add a security-boosting application. There are many, many choices, but perhaps the hottest category of all right now is "Personal Firewalls," and that's what we'll focus on a selection of them in this column.

Regardless of whether or not you're behind a corporate firewall, network address translator or proxy, these local firewalls sit on your PC and monitor your Internet traffic to block inappropriate access from hackers. Some go even further and watch for unusual outbound activity -- the sort of surreptitious "phoning home" that a Trojan Horse program might do, sending information about you or your PC back to some third party source, without your knowledge or consent.

My current favorite personal firewall remains the free and excellent ZoneAlarm.

Although it still has some rough spots, it's evolving fast (the current version is 2.0.26), and has overcome many of the problems of over-reporting and crashing that sometimes plagued the earlier versions. Despite the fact that's it's free, ZoneAlarm does more than some $50 commercial products: For example, it's one of the few firewalls that will detect a Trojan app trying to "phone home."

Page 2: 
1 | 2 | 3 Next Page »


Subscribe to RSS


Advertisement

CAREER CENTER
Ready to take that job and shove it?



TechCareers

SEARCH
Function:

Keyword(s):

State:
SPONSOR
RECENT JOB POSTINGS
CAREER NEWS
10 Search Engines You Don't Know About
Go beyond Google and get vertical. These specialized search sites will help you find the business information you need -- fast.

Yahoo Profits Fall 23%, Cuts 1,000 Jobs
Ari Balogh was named to the post of chief technology officer as the companys for a "realignment" of employees.

More articles from our career center





Subscription Info
Apply for a free 52-week subscription to InformationWeek (a $199 value)

Last Name:

First Name:

Title:

Company Name:

City:

Business Address:

Zip:

State:

Email Address:

NOTE: Offer valid for U.S., U.S. possessions, & Canada only